Sweet Dreams Till Sunbeams Find You
by tepid sponge bath
Summary: Wherein Sherlock uses a dream catcher to do something about John Watson's bad dreams, and it actually works.  Also, what he did with the dreams caught therein.


**Notes**: Written for this prompt on the Sherlock kink meme on LJ (Part XVIII) :  
_I don't really know how to explain this idea...That's what happens when I don't sleep an entire night.___

_Sherlock hangs a dreamcatcher above John's bed, and it actually works, as in it only lets the good dreams pass and holds back the bad dreams. Then, in the morning, Sherlock comes into John's room and takes the nightmares away and turns them into something he thinks John would like. At night, he sends them to John. I'd prefer gen, not slash, although it's fine if it ends up as slash anyway. (But please, no Sherlock sending John porny dreams. *blush*)___

_Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me, either. _

Disclaimer: The characters of the BBC's _Sherlock_ are not mine, and I make no monetary profit from this. Also, the title is taken from Gus Khan's lyrics to _Dream a Little Dream of Me._

Sweet Dreams Till Sunbeams Find You

Sherlock knew about dreams. He knew there were dreams that kept you sane, dreams that lied, dreams that told you the truth, dreams that made sense, dreams that didn't, and dreams that held who you were. He also knew that John Watson had bad dreams, full-fledged nightmares, nearly every night. He could tell, even on the nights that John didn't potter downstairs past midnight under the pretense of wanting a cup of tea, even when he didn't have red eyes in the morning from staying on the computer all night because not sleeping was better than dreaming.

John hadn't wanted to talk about the dreams. He had been uncharacteristically sharp and _angry_, and Sherlock had been shocked into dropping the subject like a hot potato.

It bothered him that something, anything could do that to his flatmate.

So he bought a dream catcher, one that actually worked, from a friend of a friend who owed him a favor, paid for it with a promise and a minor dream of his own. It was a simple device, if delicate, and John laughed when Sherlock handed it to him.

"Keeping you awake, am I?" he asked, fingering the taut mesh of strings.

"Hardly," said Sherlock, "but the coffee you make is generally worse after you've had a nightmare, so much so that you end up throwing out the entire pot. A singular waste. And the dreams happen so often that good coffee is becoming a rare commodity in this flat."

"As is privacy, apparently. And you could always make the coffee yourself, you know." John held the dream catcher up, peering at it against the light. "Don't tell me you actually reckon it'll work."

Despite his incredulity, John took it upstairs with him anyway, where Sherlock knew he'd hang it up. He could follow John's train of thought easily enough - he'd tried therapy, he'd tried pills, and he was never going to try alcohol, so he might as well try this mental thing, no harm in a bit of room decor, right?

The coffee the next morning was excellent.

Sherlock removed the dreams when John was at the surgery. They were insubstantial things, as all dreams were in the morning light, dull gray wisps tangled in the threads of the dream catcher.

He knew about dreams, so he had thought he could change them, mute the colors and the sounds, make them faint and faraway and better. But he _knew about dreams,_ which was why he couldn't touch these.

It would have been easier if they had just been about the war. He wished they had just been about the war.

There were dreams about Afghanistan there, the gunfire and the foothills, and the strange local demons, and they were nightmares in their own right. But the worst, the very worst dreams were the ones where John couldn't keep Harry on the phone, where he was too late to stop Sherlock from taking the _wrong_ pill, where his wrong diagnosis cost a life, where being plain John Watson wasn't enough, where the world would be better off minus one ex-army doctor.

Sherlock wasn't given to emotionally-driven bursts of action, but he was briefly tempted to run to the surgery to _shake_ John, to tell him precisely and logically and in detail that he was the best man he knew, that the _world_ didn't deserve John Watson, that he was better than any of them deserved. He wasn't tempted to text, though that would have been faster, because even he knew that there were some things you just didn't say with a text.

He was, for a longer period of time, tempted to tip the dreams onto the windowsill so that they would dissolve in the sunlight. He didn't, because you can only do so much to other people's dreams without letting the madness in.

xxx

"My dreams, eh?" said John, turning the box over in his hands. It was small and ivory, for false dreams, and Sherlock had put the nightmares in it, tucked in and folded like clothes for charity. He had given it to John when he came home, late, from sharing a pint with Lestrade and a few of the other Yarders. "You know, Sherlock, I don't know if it bothers me more that you messed with my head or that I'm actually drunk enough to believe you."

"I didn't mess with your head. It would have been messing with your head if I'd changed them without telling you, or if I'd taken them away entirely. There's a difference."

"Yes, well, there's no such thing as privacy in this flat is there?"

"As you said this morning."

"You're not even going to deny that you're a nosy bugger? Sherlock, this is taking shamelessness to a whole new level."

Sherlock ignored that. "They're all there, everything from the dream catcher. If you ever need to dream them again - I sincerely doubt you'll _want_ to, but sometimes it's necessary - all you need to do is open it. If. If you do, and if you'd like help or company or whatever it is you call it when you do, you just have to ask."

John hefted the box in his palm, and Sherlock could see the question forming in his mind, but the doctor didn't ask, so he didn't have to explain why he did it. He'd have said something offhand about the quality of coffee, and that would have been true, but it was only the smallest facet of the big picture.  
"I'm not saying for a second that I believe this. But thanks. I guess," said John finally. "Though this beats even the preserved feet you had hanging up in the kitchen the other week. I swear sharing a flat with you just keeps getting stranger and stranger."

He stood up, his fingers closing around the cold ivory. "The dreams were getting better, you know. They used to be worse. Much worse. You didn't have to do this. I already have more than enough to be grateful for." He shrugged, a loosening of the shoulders rather than an expression of nonchalance. "I'll do the coffee tomorrow. Not that you would have, in any case." John grinned at Sherlock. "But you're buying the milk this time. We're out again."

Sherlock inclined his head, and the corners of his mouth quirked upwards in a small, pleased smile, an answer to John's own. "Fair enough," he said.


End file.
